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***

A Ship is huge by the standards of a shuttle, but by the standards of a planet, it’s a tiny toy world, a little jewel of human ingenuity and theatrical deception.

V told me about their first visit planet-side, that sense of space and terror, the hair-raising sensation of oceans and poles driving the motion of the air. It’s one thing to know it in theory, yet another to feel it in one’s body. The Ships are designed to deceive planet-siders (myself, I was quite delightfully deceived) but planets have their own minds.

Behind the walls of the passenger quarters, of course, the Ship has vastness untold. It’s a forest world traversing the interstellar deeps, very much like its distant ancestor, thes seagoing cities of the ship-colonies of Karis.

From orbit, I saw the jeweled strings of light that mark the ship-colonies on the nightside.

The Ships are a marvel and a glory, but I’m happy to be home.

***

In the approach to NaNo 2016 we begin conversation with the unnamed chronicler preparing Chaika’s case before the Great Council of Karis. Character interview for NaNoWriMo 2016 project The Clone’s Complaint.